Well Blizzcon came to an end on Saturday. Not a whole lot came of Blizzcon as a whole in the area of groundbreaking info. We got some info on changes coming to the 2-D maps for dungeons. We got a cinematic for Worgen (Ill post that below). We also got to see the log in screen for Cataclysm. And outside of WoW we got some updates on Starcraft 2 modes, and the final Diablo 3 class. 

I don;t want to label Blizzcon ’10 as an Epic Fail, b/c I am sure that if you were there you had a blast. Yet, I am glad I am not one of the people who paid to watch it on direct TV and am also glad I didn’t pick this year as the 1st year to go to Blizzcon. Mainly for those people I think it would be a colossal let down. Sure we love to celebrate all things Blizzard but when you look at the past you expect a lot more announcement excitement, and presentation goodness. This is what I have been saying for about 5 months now. If Cataclysm is not released before BLizzcon then we are due for a enormous letdown. And IMHO we got it.

Ok now I am going to get into my final thoughts on the latest patch. The last thing I want to talk about for it is the UI. Blizzard has a long history of being real good at being accepting of mod’s/add ons for the interface. They ALSO have a long history of stealing some of the best ideas in the community and adding there own take on it and putting it into the stock UI. Most players probably don’t remember the days when we didn’t have big yellow ! or ? on the mini map. If you didn’t know where to go for a quest or to turn it in, you had to find it yourself. OR if you didn’t know what those herbs looked like on the ground without the  mini-map you didn’t have a sparkling cloud around them either (sorry that wasn’t a UI thing but hey it wasn’t always there!.. and yes I had to walk 2 miles uphill in the snow to get from IF to SW also!).

Anyway, now we have a great tooltip that pops up as 2 semi circles glowing in the middle of the screen when insta-use skills proc from our talents. Yes, I am sorry I don’t know which add-on this was stolen from but I thank you none the less. Gone are the days when I would say “Crap I missed the words “SLAM” coming up the screen” or before that I missed the icon up on the top which would clue me on the insta-slam. NOW when things proc like Lock-N-Load or Dark Transformation you REALLY cannot miss it. I for one love this b.c as an admitted clicker (for the most part) I tend to look all around or move and sometimes I just miss these procs, and now I just cannot.

The other big change in the UI is the complete overhaul of the character sheet and spell books. These are waaayyy nifty. Everything on your charactersheet is nice and easy and right there with no need for drop downs. Yet, you can drag alot of the panes around in the sheet to keep what you really want to up top. The spells tab rocks mostly b/c it tells you when you need to go see your trainer and also for skills you don’t have it is greyed out and tells you when you will be getting said skill. (And thank God there is no more skill points for weapon skill!!! About damn time).

Yep the patch is here and I love every aspect of it. Like I mentioned Friday, it has totally and completely re-invigorated the game for me and I am hoping this new life keeps it all real fresh until that faithful Dec 7th day. Now I just hope I can get to Target early enough after work to get a collector’s edition since no one has the pre-order for it going on right now. Hope you liked my little views on the Patch and blizzcon I can’t wait for more info on whatever BLizzard is cooking up in there… and one last time I will beg and plead with the peeps at blizz… PLEASE GET DIABLO 3 OUT SOOOOOOONNNNNNNN!!!!!

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